Tattoo styles
Colour or black & grey is the palette; realism, the technique; neo-Japanese, where the motif comes from. That's why one piece can appear under more than one style.
Realism
Realism asks the skin to read like a photograph or an oil painting: volume, light and texture built up from gradients, with no outline holding them together.
Colour
Colour hits hard from a distance and demands craft up close: saturated pigments that have to settle well into the skin, and contrast planned so the piece still reads once the ink matures.
Black & grey
Black & grey is built from black ink, diluted to different strengths from the most transparent grey to solid black, and lets the skin itself provide the highlights.
Neo-Japanese
Neo-Japanese starts from the imagery of traditional Japanese tattooing — hannya and oni masks, kitsune, geishas, peonies, temples — and paints it with today's tools: more volume, more gradient and a palette that isn't limited to the classic one.
